Shaw plans to expand science building

Inside Shaw University's Roberts Science Building, research is taken seriously.

Data detailing racial disparities in elder care is fodder for a four-foot hallway banner. And all over the building, signs with requests such as "Testing, Quiet Please," are stuck to classroom doors. But the four-story science building isn't big enough to accommodate all of Shaw's scientific ambitions.

This week, Shaw won Raleigh Planning Commission support for an addition to Roberts Hall that will add just over 30,000 square feet to the building. The Raleigh City Council will consider the Roberts Building expansion at its June 6 meeting.

If approved, the $4.3 million federal-grant funded expansion will house a library, some classroom and laboratory space and provide office space for the more than 20 scientists recruited to conduct research examining the social and medical roots of disease, said Daniel Howard, principal investigator and director at Shaw University's Institute for Health, Social and Community Research.

The expansion is part of a larger university effort to become a leading force in research that explores the ways and reasons that some conditions, such as diabetes, and phenomenon, such as infant deaths, disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minorities. To get there, Shaw has made a series of changes that will be felt far beyond its campus .

In February, the school formed an institutional review board, becoming one of the smallest colleges in the nation with the capacity to evaluate and approve research projects that involve human subjects.

Last March, the school announced plans to build a child development center near its main campus, where the speech, hearing and cognitive skills of young children will be tested. It will serve as a research and training facility for Shaw faculty, and students and preschool teachers will be certified there. Construction is expected to be complete in 2007.

But as the university expands its physical and scientific footprint, people who live near Shaw University have experienced some growing pains.

After the child development center was announced, some area residents complained that it did not fit with an area redevelopment plan. The center ultimately gained some community support.